Surveillance

GCHQ

In 1976, Duncan penned a piece in Time Out magazine revealing for the first time in Britain the existence of a highly secretive intelligence agency GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters). Following the Second World War, an exclusive intelligence sharing arrangement was implemented between the United States and Britain called the "UKUSA Agreement". Shortly after, the agreement would be extended to include other English-speaking countries, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and known as the "Five Eyes". To read the declassified UKUSA documents, released by the UK National Archive, click here.

Duncan's story was called The Eavesdroppers and it would both set in motion the events leading to the highly publicised ABC Case of the late 1970s, and form a significant source for his journalistic output.

Here you will find a collection of Duncan's stories and links to matters concerning GCHQ.

The Eavesdroppers

Duncan's seminal investigation into GCHQ. Until it's publication in 1976, no news source in Britain had mentioned its existence.

The spies who spend what they like

16 May, 1980

GCHQ: the cover up continues

New Statesman revealed evidence of widespread corruption, security failure and foreign espionage inside GCHQ. Further evidence of GCHQ's corruption is revealed and how it relates to dangerous incompetence.

23 May, 1980

Menwith Hill Station, Yorkshire, is "the largest field site in the agency " (NSA). This massive major investigation run jointly with the Sunday Times in 1980 uncovered how, it was already one of the world's biggest telecommunications-tapping centres. Witnesses revealed how it was spying on Britain and Europe, and wired into international telecommunications